Google hid song lyrics in YouTube Music for free users

YouTube Music limits free users from accessing song lyrics

* What happened?

According to *The Verge*, YouTube Music now allows only paid subscribers to view the full text of any track. Free users are granted access only to the first five songs per month.

* How does it work?

After a user exceeds the limit of five songs, they are shown only the opening lines of each subsequent track. To see the entire lyrics, one must subscribe to Premium.

* Who can read the lyrics now?

Lyrics are available only to YouTube Premium or Music Premium holders. This is confirmed by user reports, but Google has not officially announced a policy change, so *The Verge* requested clarification from the company.

* Subscription pricing

- YouTube Music Premium – $11 per month (ad‑free, background playback, offline download, and AI features such as Ask Music).

- YouTube Premium – $14 per month (the same benefits plus access to all of YouTube’s services).

* Company context

This week Google announced it has over 325 million paid subscriptions across its consumer services, including Google One and YouTube Premium. It is expected that by 2025 revenue from ads and YouTube subscriptions will exceed $60 billion.

Thus, YouTube Music now turns lyric viewing from a free feature into part of a paid offering, strengthening its business‑model approach to monetization.